DigitalGlobe, a commercial vendor of space imagery, is busy in manufacturing a new satellite, The WorldView 3. It is expected to be launched by the end of this year. After which it will be the world’s strongest satellite ever.

Introduction of this spaceship is the 3rd effort of the series. Earlier, WorldView 1 was launched in September, 2007 and WorldView 2 in October, 2009. These space ships send high resolution images of our planet to Google Maps or Google Earth.

Key Features:

WorldView 3 would be operating at an expected distance of about 617 kilometers from the Earth.By providing about 1.24 meters multispectral resolution, and 3.7 meters short-wave IR resolution while the maximum resolution is 25 cm. It would be able to collect about 680 thousand square km/day.

It would be able to see even the Infrared Spectrum which is not visible to the human eye.

This satellite will keep an eye on each and every portion of the entire planet after every two days by revolving in it’s orbit at a distance of about 370 miles from the Earth. It is capable of focusing specified portion of the planet.

Google that provides us the facility of Google Earth, does not own a satellite for this purpose. It purchases the images from commercial satellites. However, WorldView 3 is allowed to sell images only to the US military. The latest American satellite can take a 4 inch high resolution picture, that can clearly capture even the food you eat. American military does not sell these pictures to Google free of cost, for many reasons.

See latest Live images of Your Home by WorldView 3:

Instead of watching older pictures on Google Maps, you would now be able to see latest live images of your home being captured by this satellite if you live in a capital city.